India has led the growth in homes for SES with Germany providing a surprising cameo as the satellite operator declared 276 million households at the end of 2012.
The growth of more than 17 million homes on 2011
SES has taken the total number of homes receiving signals via its satellites to some 276 million, a gain of more than 17 million homes includes 7.5 million in India alone, where the appetite for digital TV means DTH platforms Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV reach 25 million homes through SES between them.
More than 800,000 new Indian homes were added each month during 2012.
At a customer briefing in London, Norbert Hoelzle, senior vice president commercial, Europe, SES said the operator had been concerned at the potential fallout from German satellite’s move to digital TV last July.
“We spent a lot of time worrying about analogue switch off and if people would stay on satellite or go to telco or cable. After the switchover phase we had more households on satellite than we did before.”
In all a further 500,000 homes were added in the German market, buoyed by HD+, the fears of the German mini-pay platform now but a distant memory.
According to the latest Astra Satellite Monitor, In Europe, 85 million TV homes receive their signal from satellites, up from 84 million in 2011. Over the last four years, satellite has increased its reach in Europe by 17%. Terrestrial and cable reception both slightly decreased year-on-year, from 79 million in 2011 to 78 million in 2012 for terrestrial homes and from 69 to 68 million for cable homes in Europe. IPTV increased from 16 to 17.5 million homes. With 43% of all digital homes, satellite continues to be the leading digital TV infrastructure in Europe. The number of households watching satellite TV in HD quality continues to increase and reached 41% of all satellite households.
Astra serves 143 million European TV households (including indirect cable and IPTV reach), 73 percent of all European satellite homes and 80 percent of all European satellite HD homes.
